It is often required that an artificial implant, designed for contact with body tissues (brain, intestines, etc.), should have a very high elasticity, a minimal impact on the surrounding organs and tissues of both similar types of surfaces and those of different structures and smoothness. In surgical interventions with the use of artificial implants it is sometimes necessary that the implant should be penetrated by the connective tissues, such as after an inguinal hernia plasty. In other cases, it is necessary that the implant does not move on its one side and is able to slide on the tissues on its other side, like after the dura mater plasty in neurosurgical operations. It is also critical to ensure that the implant should provide for an areactive postoperative period, have high biological stability, as it is designated for a lifetime implantation into the human body. The implants currently used in surgical practice are made of polymeric material, such as polypropylene, polytetrafluoroethylene, polyethylene terephthalate, nylon, collagen, and others. However none of these satisfy the range of properties needed for a successful surgery and a comfortable life of the patient in the postoperative period.
The main disadvantages of these materials are: their biological instability, excessive rigidity, changes in the geometric dimensions with shrinkage of up to 30% of its original size, which, of course, leads to the trauma of the tissues and to the need for a repeated surgery. Excessive roughness of the surface, the knots in the places of the entanglement of mesh fibers, that are used in hernioplastics, for instance, force many surgeons to abstain from using these materials, which lowers the level of surgical care for the patients. However, getting rid of these disadvantages of these implants does not seem possible within the framework of the known methods of manufacture, which consist of weaving the implants from fibers, and of machining the rough polymer pieces.
There are methods known for manufacturing artificial implants made of elastic photo-cured materials, such as artificial eye lenses. One of the known methods is that of manufacturing an artificial eye lens according to the U.S. Pat. No. 2,132,662 from elastic material with supporting elements made from a polymer fiber, polypropylene. However, this method does not produce an implant that has minimal impact on the surrounding tissue. Another known method is that of manufacturing an artificial eye lens of two photo-curable materials according to U.S. Pat. No. 2,242,189. However, this way it is not possible to get an implant having surfaces of either different structures and smoothness. There is another method of manufacturing artificial eye lenses according to U.S. Pat. No. 6,201,036 (taken as the prototype), in which the implant is made of an elastic material. However, it is not possible to use this method to produce an implant that has different structures of surfaces, thus having minimal impact on the surrounding tissues and organs.